More Evidence That Shingles Vaccine Lowers Risk for Dementia

A growing body of evidence incriminates latent herpesvirus infections as one risk factor for dementia. A new report adds further evidence.

Researchers examined the electronic health records of 100 million people in the U.S to identify all shingles episodes and all vaccinations with either the first varicella-zoster virus (VZV) live vaccine or the current recombinant vaccine. The investigators accounted for nearly 400 potential confounders (including demographic and socioeconomic factors, comorbidities, and medications), and as a control, they compared the incidence of dementia following pneumococcal vaccination with that following shingles vaccination.